Royals’ defense wobbles as they lose to Twins, split doubleheader

Jorge Bonifacio is a 24-year-old rookie with a pure stroke, a well of power potential, and an inclination toward politeness. In interviews with unfamiliar reporters, he’ll often pull out the word, “Sir.”

He is also what baseball scouts might call a project on defense in right field, which makes him slightly different from the outfielders the Royals have recently employed inside Kauffman Stadium.

Bonifacio can rake. In this way, he is cut from a different mold of, say, Jarrod Dyson or Paulo Orlando. Yet he’ll often do things in the outfield that remind you of the defensive limitations.

The Royals believe this could change in the future, that the rough edges will smooth out. But for now, there’s a natural trade-off, the good and the bad, one that surfaced again Saturday night in a 10-5 loss to the Minnesota Twins at Kauffman Stadium.

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In the second game of a doubleheader, in the hours after a jubilant 11-6 victory in the afternoon, the Royals’ defense made a mess of things. The sloppy performance increased the degree of difficulty for starting pitcher Jason Hammel. It lasted most of the night. And for moments, Bonifacio was at the center of the miscues.

His night included a flub in the early innings and a misplay in the right-field corner in the sixth inning. But the most costly hesitation came in the early stages of the Twins’ four-run fifth inning. With a man on and one out, Twins catcher Jason Castro roped a ball to right field. Bonifacio froze, taking a circuitous route back to the baseball and playing it awkwardly off the hop. The play was not routine. But it perhaps could have been made. It turned into a run-scoring double.

“I saw it pretty good,” Bonifacio said. “I was trying to go get it, and as soon as it was close to me, the ball kind of died.”

The inning morphed into a wreck when Minnesota’s Joe Mauer drew a two-out walk and third baseman Miguel Sano obliterated a pitch from Hammel, thumping a three-run homer onto a piece of signage in the fountains in left-center field.

Royals manager Ned Yost says Bonifacio is still adjusting to the higher lights in major-league stadiums. Every day, he says, they see progress. But in both his early misread and the liner from Castro, Bonifacio appeared to be thrown off by the glare emanating from the second deck.

“Do I see him getting better out there?” Yost asked. “Definitely, I do. He’s getting more and more accustomed to playing a big-league outfield. But there are times when those lights come into play.”

Bonifacio was not the only culprit on defense — and not the only reason for the loss. The blast by Sano loomed large, as did an error from shortstop Alcides Escobar in the sixth.

Sano entered the day batting .455 with three homers and an .848 slugging percentage against the Royals in 2017. He clubbed a 461-foot homer in the first game of the doubleheader, his 19th of the year.

Before the at-bat, Hammel had a conference on the mound with pitching coach Dave Eiland and catcher Drew Butera. There were two men on and two outs. The first pitch was a 93 mph fastball, right down the pipe.

“He was trying to go down and away with a fastball,” Yost said.

Hammel would say he attempting to coax a ground ball early in the at-bat. Instead, he put one in the worst spot possible.

“I basically just left it out middle,” he said.

The three-run homer gave the Twins a 4-2 lead. The defensive lapses continued. Escobar booted a routine grounder in the sixth, aiding another three-run outburst. Whit Merrifield committed another error in the ninth, offering the Twins a final gift. Yost called the mistakes “rare hiccups.”

In the end, Hammel was charged with six earned runs in 5 1/3innings, his worst line since the first weeks of May. In some ways, he appeared to tire in the fifth inning, yet his night could have looked demonstrably different with a few moments of sounder defense.

“I got myself into some bad counts in those last two innings,” Hammel said. “That one is totally on me.

Jason Hammel went 5 1/3 innings on Saturday night, taking the loss against the Minnesota Twins.

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The Twins (41-39) took advantage. Sano’s homer altered the complexion of the game. Eddie Rosario collected a career-high five hits.

The Royals and Twins will close out the four-game series on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.

In the afternoon game of the doubleheader, the Royals notched an 11-6 victory, storming back from a 5-1 deficit. The offense clubbed four homers, including a team-leading 22nd of the year from third baseman Mike Moustakas. The bullpen rescued starter Luke Farrell, making his major-league debut, by allowing just one run across the final 6 1/3innings.

Kansas City Royals pitcher Luke Farrell talks about his major league debut after the team's 11-6 win over the Minnesota Twins on July 1, 2017.

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The victory pulled the Royals even with Minnesota in the standings, each team sitting at 40-39 and tied for second in the American League Central. The dead heat lasted for just more than four hours.

Facing Minnesota rookie Felix Jorge, who was making his major-league debut, the Royals built a 2-0 lead in the first on an opposite-field homer by first baseman Eric Hosmer. The homer lined into the seats in right field and represented Hosmer’s second opposite-field blast of the series.

For a moment, it appeared as if the Royals’ offense might inflict significant damage on the rookie. But Jorge, a willowy 23-year-old, utilized a 95 mph fastball to work into the sixth inning, allowing three runs in five-plus innings.

When Twins manager Paul Molitor called on reliever Buddy Boshers with one on in the sixth, the Royals trailed 7-2. The game changed again moments later when outfielder Jorge Soler connected on a 90 mph sinker and launched a 417-foot homer that landed above the Royals’ bullpen in left field. It was Soler’s second homer in a Royals uniform.

The offense stayed on the attack. Brandon Moss roped a double into the right-center gap and scored on a double by Alcides Escobar. For Moss, it was his fifth hit of the doubleheader after recording just seven in the month of June. The Royals had clawed back to 7-5.

They would get no closer. The defense wobbled. The Twins kept scoring. The result was one victory and one loss in one day at Kauffman Stadium.